Incorporeal
by ravenslight
Summary: Hermione Granger wakes up the morning after the Snatchers appeared, destined to complete the same motions of her last day as a ghost for the rest of her existence with little memory of her last living years. When an old enemy interrupts the solitude of her death, Hermione is forced to confront the echoes of her past and learn the secrets she can't seem to face. Self-harm warning.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Happy Halloween! I'm sorry in advance. This was a very emotional piece to write, as I was in a pretty rough place when I started writing. This is part 1 of 2, and I have already started writing part 2. Please let me know what you think. I know this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it was cathartic, so I hope you enjoy it. Endless gratitude to TheOtterAndTheDrago for her beta work on this piece; she is an absolute joy to work with, and this fic would not be what it is without her insight. **This fic is 4 chapters and all will be posted today in 2-hour increments. Written for Strictly Dramione's Halloween Fest (10k word limit).**

 ***Blanket content warning for self-harm, referenced character death, and trauma. If these situations or actions are triggering for you, please do not read this***

 **oOoOoOoOo**

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 **May 10** **th** **, 1998**

Hermione Granger was a ghost. It hadn't seemed all that horrifying to her until she realized that she was doomed to roam the earth for the rest of her days without ever coming into contact with anyone again.

She wasn't the kind of ghost that got to float amongst the halls of Hogwarts. No, she was the kind of ghost that was destined to follow the same path day after day, year after year, enacting the same series of events. It was, she presumed, only apt that she would be punished to repetition when she very much hated it in her mortal life. What frustrated her about her existence was that she remembered so little of her life Before, as she'd started calling it.

Each morning began the same. She would emerge from the haze that she seemed to float suspended in every night and begin the routine over again. She would roam the now-familiar path between the tattered tent that still lay in ruins among the trees and the river that trickled or gushed or crawled through the valley at the bottom of the hill depending on the season. She walked into the edge of the river, unfeeling toes hovering over the spot where her toes had once sunk into the soft mud that lined the banks. Then she would stare into the distance expectantly. The cursed routine allowed her with little else to do but press into the past that remained elusively, tauntingly, behind that dark haze she existed in every evening.

She was doomed to repeat her last day for eternity, frustratingly disconnected from herself, her memories, her life. Still dressed in the soft nightgown she had worn on the night of her death, she roamed forlornly through the motions. She'd long since given up shouting into the surrounding hillside in the hopes that someone would hear her. No, she'd screamed and screamed until she would have been hoarse had she been living but no one heard her. No one would ever hear her again. The brightest witch of her age reduced to a colourless wisp of a soul.

It was fitting, she supposed. She'd spent so long sprinting through one thing and onto the next, chasing knowledge, that she supposed her karmic retribution was to endlessly repeat the same situation over and over again with little memory of the beloved information she had collected about the wizarding world. She no longer was appalled at the ghostly water that seeped into her gown—she had long since given up trying to _feel_ anything physically, too.

Given that her eternity was to be spent isolated in the woods of northern Scotland, she had plenty of time to think about what went wrong. Since she could only remember brief memories of approximately two months of their time on the run, she racked her brains for what could have gone wrong.

Why hadn't they thought to take the horcrux off sooner? Why had she allowed Ron and Harry to scream at each other, with only the eventual shout of Voldemort's name finally bringing her to her senses? By then, of course, it was already too late. Their wards had been broken, and Snatchers had appeared out of nowhere. She'd been standing in the edge of the river bed, trying to use the frigid water to clear her senses and ignore the arguing behind her. She remembered thinking that if she had just stared hard enough, she might be able to imagine Hogwarts just over one of the ridges of hills in the distance. She was pulled out of her reverie by Ron's broken shout, the pop of apparition, and the sudden shouting of Snatchers and crackling of wand fire. She had enough time to whip her head around in the direction of the boys when everything went blissfully blank.

She'd woken in the tent again, trying fruitlessly to whip her head side to side to place herself. Foolishly, she thought she'd been dreaming—she'd initially thought it was a product of her stress. She'd wanted to stand, to exit the tent and find Harry and Ron, but she hadn't been able to move, instead staring up at the ceiling of the tent, her brows knit together in frustration. After a few moments, she'd heaved a sigh and slid from the bed, not recognizing that her movement didn't disturb the already thrown sheets or that her feet touched a ground she didn't feel. Her body moved as if on autopilot and lifted the entrance of the tent and stopped abruptly. Curiously, she felt a flash of irritation, at what she didn't know at the time, and rolled her eyes. Again, as if on autopilot, she had moved out of the tent and down the hill. She tried to stop herself, but she moved determinedly through the hillside, curiously now covered in a soft dew and small flowered buds.

The flower buds were her first clue that something was wrong. She'd gone to bed to a frosty hillside, her breath coming in puffs of visible air. The season couldn't have shifted that much in such a short amount of time. When she'd finally reached the water's edge and dipped her toes in, she started when she couldn't feel the water. With a sinking feeling, she stared at her toes and watched, horrified, at the water moving swiftly through her form.

All rational thought had left her mind at that. She desperately pleaded with whatever being might be listening to let it be a dream. She tried to pinch herself, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't force her hand to move. She stood stoically watching the horizon in the distance before her body whipped around at a sound that wasn't there and everything went blank again.

And so, the days continued, Hermione a silent prisoner in her own mind as the world went on around her. She didn't know if Harry or Ron were alive. She didn't know what year it was, whether or not the war was over, or who had won if it was over. She couldn't remember what had caused the aching pain in her chest whenever she wondered at her parents' safety, nor could she recall the persistent feeling that she was forgetting something important regarding Hogwarts. However, her only reality was the hundred yards between the rapidly deteriorating tent and the ever-changing river.

So, she was a ghost. She supposed it could be worse. She could have just died and that have been it. She'd always feared what would happen after death—would it be an endless blackness that she was cognizant of, would she go to the heaven that her parents insisted was real, or would she be forced to relive the worst moments of her life day after day? She wasn't sure either of those options was preferable, but she decided that she was glad to at least be aware of what was going on, even if she wasn't sure that she wanted this existence.

With her time, Hermione tried to fight the cycle and regain her memory. Each morning, she resisted the compulsive need to lie in bed and stare at the ceiling sightlessly. It was an incremental change. One morning, she managed to blink when she was sure she hadn't been able to before. One week later, she could twitch her finger a quarter of an inch, and she suddenly remembered the stupid argument that Harry and Ron had that led to him storming from the tent. After a few days that felt like an eternity, she could move her head of her own volition. She nearly wept in relief when she had managed to sit up abruptly upon waking two weeks after she discovered that she could move her head, though it still took entirely too much concentration to maintain control over her own movements.

Much to Hermione's surprise, after she managed to assert her control on her body—was it three weeks? Six? Time seemed to pass differently when you're only semi-tethered to the waking realm—she was again trying to track down the source of the persistent ache of her heart when she heard the crack of apparition somewhere beyond the valley that was her permanent home now. She was in the part of the morning that required the most concentration, her toes in the mud just before the world went black around her. She couldn't afford the distraction if she wanted to figure out who had disturbed her rest, and she had already spared as much as she dared to try to raid her memory.

Leaves crunched behind her, and she fought both the ghostly instinct to whip her head around and her insatiable curiosity at who had finally joined her solitude. Only a few minutes to push back the darkness and she'd be able to see. She'd only get about two hours of consciousness, but it would be enough to puzzle out why this person had shown up in her haven.

As she pushed back against the darkness, eyes closed in desperate concentration, she felt a presence sidle up near her place at the edge of the river. She could hear their steady breathing slowly covering up the sounds of the wildlife that had been her only companion for months. She assumed they were close enough that she might have felt the warmth radiating off them had she been alive. She soon found herself focusing on their steady breathing, the slight hitch that indicated something wasn't quite right with them, and the familiar ache in her chest deepened to a painful throb; her subconscious and the memories tucked deep within it recognized this person as the source of her worry. As suddenly as it threatened, the darkness drained away from her, pulling its fingers from her soul and returning from whence it came.

She slowly opened her eyes and faced the world again. The sun was still at the same angle it had been at moments before. She still stood at the river. The mysterious person was still next to her, oblivious to her presence. She thanked Merlin that she was able to push through the darkness again and turned to face the person next to her.

Had she been alive, she was sure she would have uttered a ghastly shock of surprise, maybe even choked on an unbelieving laugh. As it were, she cursed the Merlin she had just praised as a deluge of memories flashed through her at the familiar face.

To her everlasting shock, a tattered Draco Malfoy stood at her side, tears rolling down his face.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Part 2/4. Let me know what you think.

 **June 5** **th** **, 1998**

Not for the first time in her afterlife experience, Hermione wondered if she was dreaming. Of all the people in the world to come to her final resting place—to be the source of the persistent ache in her chest—the last one she expected to find was Draco Malfoy. A crying Draco Malfoy at that. And yet, he stood eerily similarly to the way she was, tips of battered trainers she would have never imagined gracing his feet rapidly soaking with water and being swallowed by the soft mud.

He looked worn out, worse than she had seen him during their sixth year, hollow in a way that not even Ron and Harry had looked during their hunt for the horcruxes. No, Draco Malfoy looked like a dead man walking. and she wasn't sure what to make of it or the flash of memories his appearance in her ghostly haven brought.

He took in a deep breath and the tears running down his face slowed to a stop. With an angry sigh, he scrubbed his hands over his face and turned to stomp up the incline. Hermione followed, ignoring the tug in her chest that it was time to rest. Now, more than ever, she wanted to fight the urge to return to that dark place until the next morning.

It wasn't that she had ever operated under the delusion that she hated Draco Malfoy; quite the contrary. She'd always been fascinated by the sharp blonde boy, and she realized after studying him from afar that it was his own internal conflict that made him lash out at her and others. She'd learned that he didn't necessarily hate her, but that he was struggling to balance his family's beliefs with his own interactions. She didn't think that to excuse him, but she could understand the confusion that weighed on the boy, and thus she'd learned to give him the reaction he wanted and not take it personally; it was easier that way. She felt a modicum of pity for the boy so clearly damaged by a war that had started long before he was even a thought for his parents, but that pity was outweighed by the fierce desire to know what lay behind the shutters of his beautiful grey eyes.

She slowly walked up the incline and stopped at the first row of trees. Malfoy stood with his hands in his pockets, surveying his surroundings. It wasn't only his expression that looked rough. His clothes appeared to be tattered and dirty, and there was no way that the faded denim trousers were made by any elite wizarding seamstress that she knew of. His shirt hung off his too-skinny frame, faded from too many washes and thin in places that even Ron's most beloved Canons jumper wasn't. A memory flashed to the front of her mind, too quickly to grasp and comprehend, but a vision of him in a bespoke suit and a charming smile gracing his face flashed through her subconscious. The memory was gone as quickly as it came, but the remembered flutter in her stomach lingered. She followed his gaze to a small rucksack, apparently his only belonging. After a few moments, he withdrew his wand and began casting spells.

She recognized the majority of them: anti-apparition wards, muggle repelling charms, and stasis charms that would preserve the state of the clearing it was over. Others were familiar in motion, but she didn't recognize the words that flowed from his mouth. After a few more unfamiliar incantations, he slit a small incision in the palm of his hand and sprinkled blood around the perimeter of his campsite, including the tree under which she stood. When he finally closed the circle, a light blue dome appeared momentarily. With a bang and a yelp, she was cast backwards out of the area.

Malfoy whirled around at the bang and raised his wand with a shaking hand. After blinking the fear from his eyes, he shouted, "Who's there?"

She sat on the ground, eyes round, reeling from the expulsion. For the first time in months, she had _felt_ something. It wasn't pleasant, but warmth tickled in the centre of her chest. She almost cried at the sensation, having nearly forgotten what it was like to feel anything other than the despair of her singular existence.

Malfoy was still pointing his wand toward her, but he looked less frightened and more confused. Slowly, he traced the Revelio charm in the air and studied his surroundings closely. When nothing appeared—and why would anything? She was dead—he summoned his rucksack and withdrew its contents.

She suspected he must have cast an undetectable extension charm on it because a tent and other materials much too large to have fit in such a small bag flew forth. With another wave of his wand, he set the tent to pitch itself and began summoning wood for a small fire. Hermione watched him all the while from her post on the ground, simultaneously wondering at the dissipating warmth in her chest and a rugged Malfoy pitching a tent in the middle of nowhere. How far had the Malfoy heir fallen?

When it became clear that Malfoy no longer was paying attention to his surroundings, Hermione stood and approached the circle. Tentatively, she placed a hand against the protective ring, expecting the violent bang and expulsion from the area, but no such event occurred. Instead, she felt the same eerily familiar warmth in her hand, radiating from the palm upward, and she had to stop herself from quickly stepping back and staring at her hand in awe. Instead, she stood against the edge of the campsite with her hand against the magical barrier and felt for the first time in months.

Malfoy was interesting to watch. He moved with the easy grace of someone who grew up with money and was taught exactly how to carry themselves to command a room. Even with too-long hair and the pinched scowl he always wore, he was captivating.

Hermione wasn't blind; she never had been. From what should could remember of Hogwarts, she'd always appreciated how Malfoy looked. Or, rather, she had come to appreciate it. He'd grown into the wiry build that helped him excel in Quidditch and his shoulders had broadened at some point in the last few years. When he wasn't scowling, his face's angles cut an impressive jawline and framed his steely eyes perfectly.

It was his hands, however, that had always held Hermione's attention. One memory she could vividly remember from the onslaught she'd received upon his appearance was when she'd caught him, once, in an empty classroom off the Great Hall playing the piano. He'd clearly been through lessons as his fingers had moved gracefully over the notes, his foot pressing the pedals delicately, and she'd been transfixed. He caressed the keys like a lover, and, in that moment, she remembered wondering what it would have been like to be beneath that caress.

But those years were long past, she reasoned, and though she could remember only bits and pieces of their interactions, she thought he would rather die than allow himself to touch a Muggleborn such as herself. She remembered the taunts and insults clearly, as it seemed that the negative memories seemed to crowd to the surface much faster than the positive. So, she assumed, she'd grown to tolerate the taunts and had tried to see beneath the surface of the jaded boy who had always tormented her. And all she saw was pain.

She saw the pain in his eyes as he painstakingly pitched his tent and summoned wood for the small fire that he set up near the tree which she harboured under. She saw the pain when he slumped down, defeated, and pulled a worn _Daily Prophet_ clip out, dated 20th May 1998, from his pocket. She could read the article headline over his shoulder and stifled a gasp that no one would have heard: _Malfoy Family Sentenced to Dementor's Kiss for War Crimes._ In the accompanying image, Hermione could just make out a gaunt Narcissa Malfoy being dragged into a dark chamber as Draco struggled to reach her. Malfoy stared down at the article as a stray tear trailed down his cheek. He sighed heavily and stroked the side of his mother's face in the photo before returning it to his pocket.

Hermione could only assume that he had somehow managed to escape, given his dishevelled appearance and the angry tears that he had shed upon his arrival. She also assumed he had been unable to save his mother.

So, she sat against the tree, one side of her body pressed against the magical barrier just to feel the familiar ache in her chest, for the rest of the evening, watching Malfoy go through the mundane existence of life on the run. He built a campfire and cooked a small ration of meat he'd summoned from his pack. He removed a small cot from his pack and sent it floating into his tent when he went down to rinse the dirt from the day in the river, though she remained at her tree, too embarrassed to steal his dignity even though he was likely to never see her ghostly form.

It wasn't until he had finished his mediocre dinner and reclined on the other side of the very tree that she leaned against that Hermione could understand the depth of his sorrow. Draco Malfoy leaned against the tree, and he wept.

Hermione was no stranger to sorrow. The first memory that had returned after her death was when she had erased the memories of her family. She remembered spending many a night sobbing into the darkness around her after Ron and Harry had gone to sleep restlessly while she kept watch over the campsite. But, through all the remembered pain and re-shed tears, she had always known her parents were alive. Draco's sorrow was far different.

His sobs hitched his whole body, and he clutched at his ribs with each hiccoughing gasp. Tears ran unchecked down his face, and she could hear the way his breath caught in his throat with every inhale.

She was riveted to her spot beside the tree, unsure of what she should even do as a ghost. Even when she was alive, she wasn't sure she would have been able to provide the man with any comfort. They had loathed each other for so long; the death of his family and the loss that she knew would do little to comfort him.

With a shuddering sigh, Draco pulled a notebook out of his pocket, within which was a wrinkled photo of his mother and father. He heaved a heavy sigh, set the photo aside, and summoned a Muggle pen from his bag inside the tent. After a perplexed look at the pen and the ghost of a sad sigh, he put pen to paper and began to write.

He started with an entry of the date. 5th May 1998. His hands shook for a moment before he gripped the pen steadily and began to write.

 _Mother,_

 _It's my first birthday without you and Father. I exist in a world without my parents. I knew that would happen someday—that the son should outlive his parents—but I never dreamed that it would be in such a manner._

He took a huge gusting sigh and ended his entry with: _I wish I could have saved you._

After placing his journal to the side, Hermione watched as he summoned his pack, removing something from the wrappings and swathing the journal lovingly in the tattered remains of a cloak, one that she recognized as the piece he had ripped from his mother in his desperate attempt to save her from the faceless Aurors dragging her to her death. From within the wrappings, he withdrew a thin, sharp knife.

Hermione watched, trepidation racing through her, as he examined the blade. Apparently satisfied with the blade and its intentions, he extended his left hand and examined the underside of his forearm.

Where once had been the Dark Mark was a series of jagged cuts, angry and red from repeated reopening. How she had failed to notice it, she was unsure, but she couldn't help the lurching of her heart at the sight. Something in her soul longed to console the man before her, to wrap him in her arms and stop him from spilling his own blood, but she could do neither as she knew not where the sensation came from or how to do anything in her incorporeal state.

Instead, she watched helplessly as he drew the blade over his ruined mark, a pained hiss escaping his lips as blood spilled forth. He stared at the bloody line, a grim sort of satisfaction across his features, as rivulets of blood ran down his arm and dripped to the grass below. A memory, his voice, flitted through her head; _it's just blood, Granger._ When he was satisfied with the bleeding line, he cut another directly next to it, paralleling the first cut, and it was then Hermione knew. His punishment for being unable to save his family: two cuts to symbolize their death over the being that had forced his hand in serving him.

After the first hiss of pain, Draco sat in stony silence, bearing the weight of his punishment, and Hermione's heart broke. Judging by the number of cuts littered across the mark, he had been doing this ritualistically, likely every night since his parents' were dragged away to a fate worse than death. He would not use dittany to cover the scars because, if she knew him well enough—and her resurfacing memories made her believe she knew him better than she even suspected—he wanted to bear the scars in retribution for their loss.

For the better part of an hour, he watched the cuts bleed steadily until they clotted and stopped. And although Hermione wanted to leave him to his silent mourning, she stayed; stoically, silently, bearing witness to his pain until he retired for the night, and she slipped into darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

**September 9** **st** **, 1998**

The days seemed to pass a little easier now. She woke each morning and resisted the remaining parts of her after-death ritual. She would then join Draco by the riverside and stare off into the hills with him. She longed to talk to him, to have some kind of human contact, but she supposed that having another human with her would have to suffice.

She left him to his solitude when he raged amongst the trees, blowing things to bits and then putting them back together again only to blow them up again. It was a lot like his life, she supposed: pieced back together haphazardly after the war only to be shattered again, each time a little less recognizable as the original. She didn't like to see the brokenness in his eyes when he sobbed heart wrenching pleas to Merlin, to the Muggle gods, to whatever was listening to take him instead.

She feared the pain in his eyes matched what was in her own if she could see their reflection.

She rejoined him each night when he began his writing. She thought it might be an invasion of privacy, but she rationalized it because he wouldn't ever know. And she'd never be able to tell. As a ghost stuck in this secluded speck of woods, who might she ever cross again? And even if she did, by chance, come across another person, she wouldn't be able to speak to them.

Day after day passed, and their unknowingly synchronized routine stayed unchanged. She grew to respect the Malfoy that she learned through his writing. He had such honest prose, a lyrical quality to his writing that pulled her in and wrapped her up in the cadence of the words. She had always known he had been her second in everything; the boy was a bastard, but damned if he wasn't smarter than anyone gave him credit for. She wished they hadn't been predisposed to be on opposite sides of the social order because she would have loved to pick his brain about magic. As it were, she was mesmerized by the words that poured forth from his pen, his journal entries becoming longer and longer each time she joined him.

Some evenings she simply sat next to the little tree, separated by the thin strand of magic between them and watched his hand slant over the journal, the words—and sometimes tears—spilling over the pages like a wave upon a shore, a litany, a prayer, the only absolution he seemed to think he would ever receive. Other evenings found her resting against the thread of magic if only to feel the warmth of it in her chest and read his sloped writing or watch the way his elegant fingers grasped the pen as a lifeline. Those nights were often the nights that bits of memories seemed to fall back into her waking mind, and many of them featured hints of the blond man before her, and they always left her reeling and desperately trying to recall that which she could not remember.

He nearly always started his journal entry the same, with the number of days he'd been in that location. It wasn't imaginative, usually just a recount of the days. But sometimes, after a particularly bad day, he'd write an apology. Always short and always to someone she didn't expect.

The first had been to Luna. He apologized for keeping her locked in his basement—a fact which jolted her heart in her chest, both at fear for the fanciful blonde girl and the slump of Draco's shoulders as he relayed his shame—for accidentally breaking her wrist, for calling her Looney. It was nothing more than a paragraph broken in amongst other thoughts, but it was significant. He'd stopped after he had penned the last sentence and stared up at the sky unseeingly. With a deep breath, he wiped away the one tear he allowed to escape and finished his entry for the day the same way as usual: _I miss you, Mum. I love you._

The days passed on and on and, as the time went on, Hermione spent less time in the dark place. Some days she managed to avoid it altogether and instead spent the night watching Draco sleep fitfully within his tent. She thought of her place among the trees as a guard post and she the misguided guardian angel that had been tasked with keeping an eye on this lost soul. She wasn't sure what she could do from it, but she felt responsible for sharing his pain with him. He would never know she was there, but at least he didn't have to be alone.

On day 96, Malfoy started to change his routine. He spent less time shouting and more time staring pensively into the distance. He wrote longer entries in his journal detailing the woods around him in entries reminiscent of Emily Dickinson. He lamented his seclusion but waxed on about the blooms that sprouted up around him, telling his mother what she would have loved about the wooded area. Hermione assumed it was his way to keep his mother with him-the more ornate and poetic passages seemed to most often be addressed to his mother. He recounted his memories of her from his childhood and recalled the many times she had scolded him for one stupid antic or another.

The first time he laughed, Hermione started. It was a pure sound, full of genuine joy, something she had never heard from him before. He smiled at the journal as he slipped into a memory, an easy smile on his face. He looked softer than she'd ever seen him before and she longed to know the boy behind that smile. How much weight must he have borne to keep such a beautiful smile locked away beneath the surface?

He finally returned to the journal entry and finished his story quickly. _It was one of the best days of my life_. He sighed, and Hermione recognized the sadness in it as if it were her own. Having ran the pen dry, he had started using a quill, which he set aside and replaced the lid on his ink, leaning against the tree behind him. Hermione watched him curiously as he fiddled with the clasp on his bag and suddenly reopened the journal to a new page. With a heavy sigh, he unscrewed the ink cap and dipped his quill into it. He stared at the blank page for a few moments with furrowed brows and, finally, he started to write.

Desperate to see what had weighed so heavily on his mind, Hermione leaned over his shoulder as closely as the barrier would allow. The familiar warmth in her chest told her that she was as close as she could get, so she settled in to watch. After a moment of writing, he leaned back and stared at the page, rolling his quill between his fingers. Hermione's heart skidded to a halt, then leapt into overdrive at the name written on the page.

 _Ron Weasley_. He was writing an apology to Ron. She blinked in disbelief and read again. Sure enough, Ron's name still adorned the top of the page. She couldn't make out everything that was written on the page because of the angle at which he held it, but she could read some of the phrases that were written on there. _I'm sorry that I was a right git to you, but you make it pretty easy_. She rolled her eyes at that one; typical Malfoy.

It was much like his other apologies: brief and to the point. She did, however, feel a stirring of emotion in her chest that she hadn't felt with any of the others. He was always heart-wrenchingly honest in his confessions, seeking an absolution he likely would never receive, and she realized that she had slowly come to respect and care for the wizard scribbling away before her. But this entry was different. He was seeking the forgiveness of a person he knew would never grant him exoneration and still he wrote. He scribbled away at the page like he could scratch out all the pain he had caused, and he angrily dashed away the tears that sprang to his eyes.

Hermione couldn't bring herself to keep reading as he wrote, choosing instead to confront the myriad of emotions swirling within her chest. What had happened to Draco Malfoy, other than losing his mother and being hunted down by both sides of the wizarding war, to result in such a changed person? Why did such sorrow weigh on his chest, and what prompted him to write these journal entries that she suspected he would never show the world?

Draco finally stopped scribbling and leaned back against the tree, heaving a heavy sigh as he balanced the journal on his knee and tapped the end of his quill against it. His eyes were clenched shut and a few stray tears rolled down his cheeks. For the night, he had written the world off his shoulders. The next night, she assumed, he would be back at it. Despite her raging emotions, she peered at his entry and the last line caught her eyes: _I know you'll never forgive me, but I'm really fucking sorry._

Her heart clenched, and emotion spread through her chest. Without thinking, she reached her hand through the barrier and laid it against his shoulder. To her surprise, she— she _felt_ something. It wasn't like touching someone had been when she was living. No, this felt like the featherlight touch of early morning fog on your face, a barely-there warmth that shot straight to her soul and sent her heart racing.

All at once, a bolt of warmth flew down her arm and into her chest. She yelped and quickly drew her hand back. Malfoy jumped up and whirled around, wand out and pointed at the tree he had been sitting against.

His voice shook when he spoke. "Who's there?" Silence greeted him, though Hermione's breath wheezed in and out of her in shock. He stalked out of the protective circle and spoke again. His too-long hair hung ragged around his face, and his eyes flashed between fear and anger. "I fucking said who's there?!"

Hermione gulped and stood. She had nothing to fear, but she still shook at the raw emotion in his voice. It wasn't that she was frightened of him; no, she was frightened for him. He looked untethered, lost in a way he hadn't allowed himself to be for a while. So much of him was vulnerable, and Hermione could nearly see the thin string holding him together.

After a few moments of casting spell after spell to search out whatever or whoever had touched him, Draco seemed to calm down and entered his protective ring again. He still continued to eye the wooded area suspiciously and Hermione watched on. When he settled down against the tree again, she breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he wouldn't be leaving yet.

When he finally went to bed that night, Hermione forced herself to remain though the darkness threatened at the corners of her vision. He thrashed in his sleep a few times, occasionally calling for his mother or whimpering in fear. She wished she could take some of the pain that he so obviously still felt and soothe it away. She wished she could step through the barrier that separated them and gather him in her arms like she did Harry when he had been feeling particularly vulnerable.

She wasn't sure when she had started to think of him beyond the Malfoy she remembered. As she watched him toss and turn on the threadbare sheets, though, she knew that he was struggling with far more than she had ever imagined and likely had been for some time. She felt a soul-deep guilt that wouldn't go away that she had so quickly dismissed his pain. She'd always wondered what he had to feel sorrow about when his family was so well-off, when he had everything he could ever need. He had always been essentially wizarding royalty.

Now, she could clearly see the pain in his eyes, the way he carried himself, the apologies he penned night after night, the cuts he inflicted on his arm where his Dark Mark used to be and the ones that riddled the insides of his thighs when the cuts on his arm just weren't enough. He didn't know any other way to process the pain, so he used himself.

She wasn't sure when she decided that she wanted to be the one to take his pain away, but she had. She couldn't recall when he had stopped being Malfoy and became Draco inside her head. She didn't want to admit that she felt much more toward him than she had already acknowledged because she would never be able to do anything about it; more than a magical barrier separated them.


	4. Chapter 4

**October 31** **st** **, 1998.**

Something was different when Hermione emerged from the familiar black fog. She couldn't identify what it was, but she had a feeling that something was about to change.

She fought the routine of her ghostly existence, pulling away from it and the fog that sought to entrap her and followed the tug in her heart to Draco's campsite through a haze of rain and the roll of thunder. Immediately, her heart dropped as she spied his pack filled and the journal resting atop it. Everything had been packed neatly inside.

Her breathing accelerated when she realized that he was leaving. For all that she could think, she had no reason to have such an emotional connection to the wizard; she had only known him as he was in these woods just short of a few months.

The crunching of leaves behind her alerted her to his presence and her breathing quieted slightly. He hadn't left just yet, and relief flared in her. He crossed the clearing and picked up his journal, surveying the area briefly before dropping down to sit next to the tree. His last entry, then.

Something in her heart told her that she was missing something. Where had her hatred of the boy gone? Surely some time in the woods as his ghostly supervisor couldn't have chased away all the remaining animosity. The boy in front of her evoked emotions far stronger than someone she used to rival. When he began to write, her heart stuttered in her chest.

 _I've been writing these for a while, but I never explained why. I feel guilty. I don't know what happens after this life, but I do know that I have much to atone for. Your death, all of those innocent people that I sacrificed for a cause I didn't believe in. I lie in my bed and I can still hear their screaming. It's horrifying. I see their names like a roll call, and I feel the guilt. Each one is a blow to my mind. They didn't deserve what I did to them, but I did it anyway._

 _That's why I cut. Every slice of the blade is a reminder: never forget what you did. For each letter I write, I cut. It won't change anything, but it doesn't allow me to forget what I have done. I'll wear the scars for the rest of my life. Good riddance. Shame isn't enough for what I've done. I'm not sure anything ever will be. But I can try._

 _I can't help but remember what you told me as a child: good will triumph in the end. For a long time, I thought I was doing the good. I thought that we were saving the wizarding world. Now I know better. I wasn't the good; I was the right hand of the monster that sought to end all good._

 _I knew, briefly, a better world. She was wonderful, and she made me see reason. I fought her every step of the way, but, Merlin, was she beautiful. Her passion shone in her eyes. She was the only one—after you, because you were always the first—to fight for me. The only one to see the real me, to see beyond what I wanted everyone to see. I think I could have loved her. I think I_ did _love her. But I won't ever know because she's gone. Wherever you are. I like to think that you are both together, comforting one another until I can make it there._

 _I see her eyes when I go to bed. They're the last thing I think of when I sleep and the first thing I seek in the morning. But she's not here, and she never will be again. Her eyes have long-since closed. It's a fitting punishment for them to be the first and last thing I see every day._

 _I miss you, Mum. I love you._

Hermione tried to wipe away the tear that should have been there away, but she growled in frustration when there was nothing there. Whoever he had loved had been a lucky witch. She wished she could save him from the pain he felt, but she sat silently next to him, witness to the breakdown that no one else would ever bear witness to. It wasn't much, but she didn't want to leave him.

He paused for a moment after his entry and turned to a new page, quill hovering at the top before he sighed and scribbled a quick word.

Her name. She sucked in a quick breath and watched as he penned the words that unlocked the floodgate within her.

 _I don't even know where to begin this letter. It feels strange to be writing to a dead woman. Though it shouldn't, I suppose, since I write my mother every day and she's also dead at my hands. But, no matter. Neither of you will ever read these._

 _I suppose I ought to begin with I'm sorry. For hurting you all those years, for tormenting you and Weasel and Potter, and for being the catalyst for this god-forsaken mess. I wish I could tell you that I regret the last year, for putting you in such danger, but I don't. I don't think I ever will._

Hermione's heart leapt into her throat at the words. She couldn't look away, but she didn't know why. Something in her mind was screaming to stop, to turn away, but she couldn't. After a moment, Draco continued writing.

 _I suppose, wherever you are, that you already know this, so I'm not sure why I'm bothering to write it down. I guess for my own peace of mind. That seems to be the reason I do anything anymore._

 _I loved you, in my own twisted way. I know it doesn't mean anything now, but I did—I do._

 _The last year with you, when I turned to Dumbledore, when you hid me, when you loved me, has always been a moment that I have cherished. It has gotten me through some of my darkest days, and for that, I owe you more than I can ever repay. You saved me._

Memories assaulted her one by one, and she sat with her mouth agape and a hand pressed to her chest, the profound ache once more stealing the breath she would have had. Arguing with Draco for wanting to be a martyr, for wanting to go back to Voldemort and act as a spy. Screaming matches in Grimmauld Place for being ridiculous, reckless, far too much of a Gryffindor than a Slytherin should ever be. His brief glance at her lips that had her launching herself at him, and the fierce kisses that poured forth from the passionate argument. The slow, tremulous relationship they forged, quietly holding hands under the dinner table, casual touches as they passed one another on the stairs. The night that he had asked her if he could court her, her heart in her throat and light in his eyes when she had agreed. Her fierce defence of him to Harry and Ron, and his gratitude for her belief in him. His honest attempts at friendship with Harry and Ron that slowly developed into genuine relationships for her sake. The horror in his eyes as he rushed out of the tent and met Hermione's eyes as the wand light hit her square in the chest and she collapsed into darkness. All of it flashed before her, ending with his vow to help in their quest for horcruxes and slipping from his arms to watch Harry and Ron fight amongst themselves.

With a gasp, she wrenched herself from her memories and retrained her eyes on the man before her. Her breath gusted in and out, the fierce love she had begun to feel for the man finally making itself known. Through it all, he had come to her final resting place, to be with her.

He finished his journal entry with tears running down his face. His final words, _it's like I can still feel you_ , blurred across the page as he wept unabashedly and pulled the blade from its place amongst the wrappings of his mother's tattered cloak.

With the grace that he used to delicately stroke the piano's keys, his fingers played over the blade's edge. With her heart in her throat, Hermione threw herself against the barrier, shouting with all her might, as she watched him slash across his wrists in deliberate, deep cuts. She continued screaming until Draco dropped the journal on top of his pack and sat on the ground, watching in detached fascination as his wrists wept red. When he collapsed to the ground, eyes staring unblinking upward, Hermione felt a terrible jolt in her stomach that she was watching the death of the one she had forgotten she'd loved.

A red pool spilled out around his body, and she fought the revulsion that she had watched him kill himself and done nothing. All this time, she thought it had just been a misguided attempt at atonement, a punishment for crimes he couldn't have stopped. She'd seen the cuts, but she'd never realized that he would actually go through with it. She remembered the morning that he had laughed, the joy in the sound so quickly tempered by his sorrow.

 _She thought he was getting better._

With a frustrated sob, she threw herself against the magical barrier separating her from the pale wizard. She wasn't sure if she was actually making any noise, but words were reverberating inside her head as she slammed repeatedly into the barrier. With one last desperate sob, she threw herself into the barrier—and crashed to the ground on the other side.

Had she been alive, she would have immediately checked herself for bruises and scrapes. Even in her intangible form, she could feel the way her impact with the ground would have jarred her body. Instead, she scrambled for purchase on the hard ground and tore to Draco's side.

She didn't know what to do. In her form, there wasn't much that she could do, but she still fought to grab his hand through her tears. She slowly became aware of her surroundings as she forced herself to settle and listen, with baited breath, for any sign that Draco was still breathing. When she noticed his chest just barely rising and falling, she choked out a sob. His name became a mantra on her lips.

 _Draco, Draco, Draco, please you can't die like this._

It was with one final, desperate attempt, after concentrating all her energy into her fingertips, that she reached out and touched his cheek, her breath held in hope.

And she felt. She felt the rainwater running down his cheek, and she felt the small start in his form at the contact. With a shuddering breath, his eyes forced upward and stared, finally seeing, at her.

His cracked lips parted on an exhale, and she just barely heard his whisper, "Granger?"

At the whisper of her name, a floodgate broke in her mind and memories flashed to the surface. Smug Draco in Madame Malkin's sneering down his nose at her; terrified Draco grasping her hand after sprinting from the Forbidden Forest in first year when he and Harry had encountered Voldemort; angry and then intrigued Draco after she punched him in the nose in third year; polished and beautiful Draco in his dress robes staring up at her with a mixture of shock and awe as she descended the stairs at the Yule Ball, a shy blush on her face; Draco subtly warning her when Umbridge would be doing rounds fifth year; their shared quips that turned into subtle flirting sixth year over their cauldrons in Advanced Potions; and finally his plea to help him go to Dumbledore that eventually led to his defection and their tumultuous relationship.

The pain in her chest, she realized, was the ache of being without the person she had accidentally fallen in love with, the person who was bleeding out slowly below her. She shook as she ran a finger down his cheek and whispered, "Fight, Draco. Fight for me," but it was no use. His eyes slowly drifted most of the way shut, and she fought to keep her tears in check as she saw the light slowly dim from them. With one final shuddering sigh, his chest went still.

Hermione thought that the world should have indicated his passing. Perhaps the rain would have stopped or lightning would strike near them or there would be a great rending in the world. But nothing happened. The world went on and the rain still fell, and Draco Malfoy was still dead.

With one last hiccupping sob, Hermione stood. She didn't know what she would do, but she had to get away from his lifeless body, so she ran. Through the trees and down the incline toward the river bed that her subconscious warned her to never cross. As she neared, the warning bells in her mind began to ring, but she shoved them down and away, forcing herself to bask in the searing pain in her chest.

When she crossed the river bed, a searing pain pierced her chest and she dropped to her knees. She gasped on the pain and forced a hand to her chest. It was only when she looked down that she saw that she was fading, slowly, from the fingertips upward. A new litany replaced that of Draco's name: _nononono_. She didn't know what was happening, but she was rapidly fading into nothing. She staggered to her feet and rushed back to the riverside, only to meet yet another barrier. In growing horror, the edges of her world began to darken, the forest sounds fading, and she fell to her knees as her vision faded to black.

* * *

With a gasp, Hermione bolted upright. Pain shot through every limb of her body. She was still in the forest, but—

 _She could feel_.

The cracking of a tree limb caught her attention, and she reached for a wand that wasn't there. When the flap of the tent was opened, brown eyes met grey.

"Granger? You're awake?"

 **End of Part 1**

 **oOoOoOoOoOo**

* * *

Thank you for reading! I promise not to end this here. For the fest, I had to work within the constraints of the word count, and this has been sitting in the back of my mind for a while. A part two consisting of four more chapters will follow this, though I can't guarantee when since I'm busy with schoolwork. As always, I appreciate you taking the time to read this. Since it's so far out of my comfort zone, I do appreciate any feedback you'd like to provide! Once again, endless thanks to TheOtterAndTheDragon for her beta work. I truly appreciate all her hard work!


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